include having fresh water year round."
"Water will do. We've – they've – been having a shortage, too. It's not like I'd have caffeine withdrawal without it."
"I did mention we have tea?"
"I'll pass, thanks."
Harvey rummaged in cupboards as Stanley cooked, and found plates and cups and silverware. Also raisins, nuts, and maple syrup. Real maple syrup. He found butter in a small crockery pot. It was real butter. It was nearly too much to take in.
"Welcome to the world of real food, as opposed to laboratory concoctions," Stanley said as he put food on the table and sat down to eat with his charge (Harvey had been right about being watched for a while).
-
When they got to Sentry Square at the south end of the base, Harvey was hard pressed to hide his surprise when a hidden door at the far end of the square was opened for them. After the door was closed behind them, Stanley suggested that Harvey read the sign posted on the wall just before a curious uphill stretch of tunnel. "Welcome to Bad Times Bart Wormhole," the sign read in large letters. Underneath, in smaller letters, it said: "The name, in case you are wondering (of course you are, admit it) is in honor of the Malyur River, originally Malheur River, meaning Bad Hour or Bad Times River. As we understand it, the name was bestowed on the river by Nineteenth Century French trappers, who stashed stuff along the river, only to find it stolen when they came back. The Bart business comes to us from the Twentieth Century, when a Bay Area Rapid Transit system in California got nicknamed BART. The name fell into disuse, but was resurrected during the early Smolder by a history geek from that area, who in a fit of geeky humor intentionally misapplied it to a nearby tunnel that went under water but was so narrow and miserable that 'rapid transit' was impossible. Although originally meant as a joke, it proved to be useful to warn people about areas of a tunnel that were subject to flooding due to sabotage, and so the name not only stuck, but spread to other tunnels in western Northam that go under bodies of water, including this one. Therefore, be forewarned. If there has been an earthquake, or the enemy has dredged the river or otherwise dealt damage, you will need diving gear or extraordinarily good lungs to get to the other side via this route. For alternate routes, go back through the door and take the Butte tunnel to Foothill, turn south, crawl topside at the first (and only) porthole, and sneak like our lives depend on it over the half-derelict bridge to the west. If the bridge doesn't appeal to you, slog across, swim, or – if there's enough water for it – pull out a boat from the Butler Homestead boat garage (map to garage at base of the porthole – so look before you surface), and stash it at the Southport Shed (also shown on the BH porthole map, so do consult it before surfacing, won't you?). For that matter, if you have time, you might check to see that there are boats on both sides of the river. That's what we want. Thanks. Have a nice walk – or swim, as the case might be."
Harvey smiled wanly. He appreciated the information. He tried to appreciate the humor. But the presence of a rambling, wordy, homemade sign that had been allowed to stand in for a strictly-business official sign was jarring to someone used to living topside. Besides, it bothered him that he'd seen several bumps and mounds and ridges along the banks of this small river, but hadn't thought that some of them might be safety features for a tunnel. He'd simply assumed that people traveling between Annextun and points south would have to go above ground and across the river somehow.
"We inherited the wormhole," Stanley said. "Stories differ on who built it. Some folks say men with sporting spirit built it just for fun. Others think it was for smuggling. Others think that Constitutionalists built it back when it first became necessary to stay underground for long periods of time, back in the days when beheadings were popular with the bureaucratic set. I'm rather fond of the theory that it's even older than that, dug out by some forward thinking people who smelled tyranny in the air in the earlier days of cultural rot. Don't know. Do know the tunnel was here but hidden and sealed off when we got here. It's made life a lot easier since we found it. We'd mostly been using a crawl space on the underside of the bridge."
"The sign doesn't mention that."
"We gotta keep a few secrets from people who might storm the tunnels, or infiltrate us," Stanley said.
They climbed the safety ridge that put the tunnel above river level, descended to the under river section, and walked across. Stanley restrained himself, only making one joke about the possibility of a 'crack of doom' resulting in death by drowning. Harvey likewise restrained himself, and didn't make a retort, although he wanted to.
-
Because they walked at a usual speed for grown men in military trim, in a portion of tunnel being used only by grown men in military trim, they didn't overtake anyone, and were only passed by two younger men who'd opted to use the trip to church as an excuse to get a run in. They didn't know Harvey and, thanks to his standard uniform, assumed he was just a new arrival of the usual sort. Pleasantries were exchanged and they jogged on ahead.
"It's the little things that'll get you," Stanley said.
Harvey hardened his face, upset that his companion had noticed that he'd been jolted to have the other men treat him cordially, and as a real human being.
Stanley let it go. He'd seen dozens of undercover agents undergo the transition back to normal life. Some of them appreciated being told that it was the little things that could floor you, and some of them didn't. Harvey, he figured, hadn't settled into one camp or the other yet. No sense pushing it. Besides, for better or worse, men who had lost loved ones generally did better at this. Experiencing profound grief could teach a man hard, but valuable, lessons.
-
The church struck Harvey with its sense of airiness, a neat architectural trick for a cavern with a not especially high ceiling.
The defense forces in uniform comprised perhaps a fifth of the congregation. Harvey was surprised. He'd thought the civilian population in this area would be just the wives and children of the few married men serving in the troops. He shuddered to think how recklessly he'd sometimes acted topside, while assuming that underground troops vastly outnumbered the people on hand to be protected.
He scanned for people he knew, and registered only a handful: a few men from the base, plus a few childhood friends who'd also landed here. Among childhood friends, he could count Warren Ott's wife, who was smiling at him from across the room while simultaneously rescuing a toddler from himself. Harvey tried to smile back, but felt a bit overwhelmed, so it was a weaker smile than he meant for it to be.
A woman near Mrs. Ott detached herself from a small group of unhappy children and walked toward him. She was halfway to him before he recognized her as Warren's sister.
"Oh, Harvey, it's been forever. I heard you might be coming underground again for a while, but I didn't know you'd be free enough to come to services. Welcome," she said, when she got up to him.
"Hello, Remna. It is Remna, isn't it?" he said.
She laughed. "It is indeed. Don't feel bad about not being sure. I put on thirty pounds those last years Avery was ill, and I've finally taken them off again. And I let my hair grow. And I gave up on wearing white shirts. It's impossible out here. The water's too likely to stain them red. It's rust bacteria, I'm told. Or do I mean iron algae? At any rate, we're plagued with it, some times of year. Out of wells, I mean. Out of the river's not a problem, as I understand it, but I'm not always at a place that gets its water out of a river."
"Thank you for the lettuce," Harvey said. "I haven't eaten any yet, but it looks good."
She laughed again. "I should probably apologize. I offered the plant to Warren to give to you, and he got one of those 'anything not totally insane to please a lady but this sure is close' looks on his face. It's not the sort of thing to give a man, I guess. I tried to take it back, really I did, but Warren was in gallant mode, and I figured you'd laugh it off in any case if you thought it was a silly gift."
"It struck me as practical," Harvey said.
"Oh, g
ood. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to the kids. Probably you haven't heard, but we had a murder-suicide recently. Jack Tolman got his hands on some explosives and tried to blow his whole family to kingdom come. He didn't get but his wife and one child, plus himself. Those are the survivors, minus one, who got smuggled out to a place with better medical facilities for that sort of thing. We're going to get the other kids out as soon as feasible, off to grandparents or aunts and uncles, but I guess it's more unsettled than usual topside just now, so we're in laying low mode. I'd invite you to join us, but probably you'll not want extra bother in your life until you're better settled in."
"In other words, the kids aren't up to dealing with people they don't remember or don't know. That's understandable."
"No, actually I meant what I said. I could use some help, especially with the boys, but I thought you might like to be alone."
Harvey got the feeling that she'd come over hoping he'd help her, like in the old days, when the two of them had fought fires together, back before she'd married Avery, back before he'd swapped firefighting for being a pilot, and before he'd met Maggie. A lifetime ago, that was. He let his eyes drift to the kids. They weren't a lifetime ago, and they were going through something like he'd been